Bad Damn Day

I had a great weekend. I recharged a ton, and I walked into work energized and refreshed. But reality was hellbent on bringing me down. My supervisor was dead-convinced that I, a poorly-trained newbie, was incompetent, and had to spread it to everyone. I tried my damnedest to prove it wrong, or at least take her abuse with a smile on my face. Then my client was a lazy dick today, tipping over an oil drum before making me do the work he was getting paid to do. It was some shit. And he wandered off with nary a word. He's deaf, so I can't just call out for him. I have to run after him and physically find him. I couldn't, because he was just GONE. So they were collectively convinced that I suck at what I do. And because of the after-work talk regarding this, I was unable to cash my check AGAIN. If you can;t tell, I'm upset about this.

So now I'm trying to get some progress on this story. It's turning out rough. It just needs more time put into it. But I have another one that's fleshing itself out day by day. So I may just put that one on the cooker and have this one on the backburner for however long it takes to flesh it out. Either one will be good, I think. They're both epics from the dark ages, but totally different. So I'm confident, but I won't force the story to happen if it doesn't want to happen just now. My muse will sing that tune when she sings that tune.

That's all I've got to say about that...

Countdown.

Four more movie ideas to plan out. I need an outline for each. So that'll be the big project this week, as I have literally nothing on the cooker next. And I won't start without a plan. No sense in wasting my efforts. Perhaps my creative juices will get flowing again.

Three scripts in my portfolio so far. Seven planned out. Shit, if even one sells, my student loans die horribly. This is my Mass Effect, and I am my own Commander Shepard here. But three scripts is a modest portfolio already. Hashtag confidence.

Two weeks until I can market my scripts. I don't have a bank in this area, and my first check will apparently be paper. It would spend too much of it to be financially feasible if I started marketing with this check. All others will be direct deposited. So there's a deadline.

One more draft and then I'm done with this script, and it's ready to sell. With Friday as my goal to be done, I think I made it. It's good. I like it. This next draft is going to have to wait a bit, but it'll be short and sweet to do. Just a tweaking draft.

Zero other people believe in me, and that's okay. When they get crazy notions, I don't believe in them either. But I'm doing this for me. So I can finally live my god damn life. And it'll happen. Even if millions have to die (on paper) for it to happen.

Done with compression draft.

Damn, that took a while. But I managed to get 8 pages knocked out without changing the plot much at all. Now to handle dialogue and then leave it. It's got to stew some more. But I'm glad that everyone has their own voice at this point. The dialogue draft is just a punch-up for every character. Then I do one more pass for quality assure and it's off to market with this puppy. My goal was to be done with it by payday, and that's Friday.

Also, my client didn't want to do a damn thing today. It was maddening, so instead I research another project. That brings me up to four that have research done. This weekend, I'm going to a Renaissance Festival, next week I'm going to an SCA event (probably), and the following weekend I'm taking a road trip with some friends. So it'll be a busy few weeks. But the first two weekends should help with inspiration, and the last should help with my structure. The hope is to get all four planned out in detail before going. Then, when I put one project on the back-burner, I can switch to another and keep production up. I'm certain my quality is fine for Hollywood, I just need my production to improve.

And things with either girl are going nowhere. And that's fine. This progress is more important. Reproduction is a thing that motivates deer, squirrels, and salmon. I would hope I'm more evolved than that. The thought has gotten me through relationship doldrums for years. I guess I'd rather be one WORTH dating than one who NEEDS dating.

Last-Minute Alterations

So, first off, today at work, my client didn't want to do ANYTHING. He wanted to lay on the floor and rock back and forth. Which is boring as shit for me, because then I sit in a chair and watch him. So I thought through the boring bits of my story.

There were a couple of repetitive scenes, and I looked into them. One of them, I wanted to repeat slightly. It compounds the danger of one of the antagonists, but they're delivered 100% differently. And I tweaked the other so that it works for me. It works better now. I'll do another run or two, just to make sure I'm not imagining it. And I found another scene that needed to happen. Since I've shed so much weight from this thing, I have plenty of room for a last-minute scene that ties the story tighter.

And then I managed to trim down the beginning so that the inciting incident comes right when I wanted it to. Overall, very pleased with today;s progress. I usually have changes around this time. Weak bits that need to be changed. Fleshed out. I'm hoping to finish by Friday. Let it sit, then go over it again before trying to sell it. This would be the third in my portfolio. And I have another three that I'm planning out. I suppose I'll take a break when this one's done. Just until I finish planning these ones out. More religion and more female protagonists, which will again be a huge change.

And I realized recently that I've been forcing things with the girl. It may yet happen. But I need to ease up. And I suppose it doesn't help that I met someone at work, and she's interested. She straight-up asked me if I was married or have a girlfriend. That's a big one, as it's effectively "are you single." She's cute. Very country, and a good girl, both of which are very different for me. But I have shit taste in women.

Lot of last-minute plot changes.

My lil fatty.

Been trimming my script down lately. My goal is to get all the way through it by Monday. I absolutely guarantee it'll be done by then. At least with that draft. Then it's only dialogue punch-ups and a quality draft, to ensure that I didn't accidentally remove something that made something make sense. It happens on occasion.

The dialogue draft is mostly to ensure that each character's dialogue sounds like them. And both drafts are an opportunity to fix character descriptions. They're honestly the toughest part of the process for me. I know who's who, but to describe them briefly is rough.

In any case, I'm probably procrastinating. Back to the grind.

Productive Weekend

I'll admit it. Though my progress on my current project has been solid, I was stuck on my next one. This weekend I went fishing with the family, and it changed entirely. I came back knowing how to fix an older story (about Ireland) so that it works, and knowing which parts of my French one needed help. I've since fleshed the next one out nicely, and I intend to do the next one tomorrow. I've even got another one on the cooker. So my idea is to plan these two out while I finish up this one. Then I plan to rough draft out the French while I work out the innumerable kinks in the Irish story. If it all goes well, I'll be able to rough draft out the Irish one while my French one is taking a necessary time-out.

And I'm working now, which is good. I'll be able to market them soon enough. Some of the stories have little issues here and there, but they're nothing extreme. Nothing story-breaking, near as I can tell. So it's exciting to get the next wave of them out there. I feel like having a fountain of solid marketable ideas is a boon, and if even one of them is "great," I should be good to go. Either way, I'm putting everything into each story. They're each unique and I try to make each as good as it can possibly be.

Who knows? But in any case, I have faith that it'll work.

Other draft DONE.

Spot edit draft is also done. It took less than an hour, because I've got Ctrl-F worked over. It's my bitch, and it does what I say. I think my process is pretty refined by now. I have a method that produces scripts reasonably quickly, and lets me dote on every thing and every character. Sorry, I'm a bit drunk right now. Also, listening to the ewok celebration song. That's my "that'll do, pig" song. Means I done good.

So, for tonight, I celebrate progress made. Ten pages of solid steamroller editing. All scenes evaluated. All considered rewrites and edits evaluated and dealt with accordingly. Tonight, I was victorious.

Also the girl, who lives forever away, posted a thing to me about how "All men should learn from Mario. Even if their princess is far away, they should go after her." Pretty sure that makes it mutual, if not still inconvenient as fuck.

I'm not great with goodbyes. So... that'll do pig.